The picture on the left was taken in February of 1987 for a passport, two months before my 17th birthday. I was mortified, I saw only a fat blob.

Immediately I began a 800 calorie a day diet with daily bedroom calisthenics and working out with a friend in the high school weight room. Hey, you pay high taxes on Long Island but the public schools have nice shit.

A typical day’s menu:

Breakfast: 1 piece of Weight Watcher’s bread, toasted, with a pat of margarine and a cup of Folgers instant coffee with skim milk.

Snack: Apple with a Diet Coke

Lunch: A Lean Cuisine. It could have been spaghetti Bolognese or a two inch square of fried chicken, nutritional make-up was not important as long as it was under 300 calories. With a Diet Coke.

Snack: 5 small pretzels with a Diet Coke

Dinner: Three pieces of turkey cold cuts with three pieces of American cheese, I made roll ups. And a Diet Coke.

Dessert: None for me thanks, I’m too full!

At 17 I was 6 feet tall and 220 lbs. I grew to 6’1″ but dropped down to 155 lbs in the first three months of that “diet,” the picture on the right. Looking back, I guess that’s not great. I don’t think my parents were too worried as my mom appreciated I was fixing my own meals and my father was blind.

Today, before 7 AM, I already ate 500 calories for breakfast. I needed to, I did my at home Daily Burn 365 workout and I’ve been running all over three boroughs of NYC since.

I wish I could go back to 17 year old Jeff as tell him, go ahead, have an amazing fluffy three egg omelette with cheddar and put full fat milk in your Cameroonian coffee. And stop with the being in the closet thing and bang as many dudes as you can. Maybe if you got laid, you wouldn’t eat so god damned much.